Using recycled materials and a little imagination, create a bouquet of beautiful blossoms for a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day treat! Have fun making your own printmaking tools and then use them to create colorful flowers for your arrangement. The best thing about these blooms? They won’t wilt!
What you need:
- Toilet paper or paper towel tubes
- Craft paint
- Cardstock or recycled cardboard (from a cereal box)
- Sticks from the yard (shake to remove dirt!) or skewer sticks
- Scissors
- Tape
- Small flowerpot (optional)
- Filler for flowerpot: rocks, floral foam, glass beads, etc. (optional)
What you do:
- On each of your tubes, cut fringes around one end. Try cutting different widths and lengths of fringe on each tube to create variation when you make prints.
- Dip the fringed edge of your paper tube into a pool of paint, then press gently onto the paper to create a round blossom.
- Using a tube with a shorter fringe dipped in a second color of paint, add an inner circle to your blossom, creating depth. You can repeat with other shorter length tubes or leave as is.
- Continue to create blossoms around the paper, leaving space in between to cut them out. Let dry.
- Cut out each blossom.
- Tape a blossom to the top of a stick by placing a length of tape over the stick to connect to the back of the blossom on either side. Repeat for each blossom.
- Fill your flowerpot with your filler, then insert each stick gently into the flowerpot to create a unique bouquet.
Alternative: Don’t have a flowerpot? No problem! Lay your blossoms, with sticks attached, on cardboard. Attach with wire by poking wire through the cardboard on either side of the stick and twisting the wire on the back. Cut a vase shape out of fun paper and attach over the bottom half of your bouquet.
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